[New-Poetry] Dorset Prize Dustup

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://www.pw.org/mag/0703/newslarimer.htmnew
 
 
Jeffrey Levine's Dorset Prize Dustup 
By Kevin Larimer  

Jeffrey Levine
ILLUSTRATION BY NATHAN KISSEL

 
Up until last fall, the closest Jeffrey Levine had come to a controversial contest was when he agreed to publish Priscilla Sneff's poetry collection, O Woolly City, the 2004 winner of the Kenyon Review Prize (the book had been orphaned when Neil Azevedo's Zoo Press ceased operations early last year). Levine's Tupelo Press, founded eight years ago, had been almost universally praised for setting a new standard among independent literary presses and for sponsoring three successful poetry contests: the Snowbound Series Chapbook Award, the Tupelo Press Poetry Contest, and the Dorset Prize, all of which include a cash prize and publication.
But, in the opinion of many, the solid reputation the press had established by publishing nearly fifty books by such poets as Ray Gonzalez, Joy Katz, Anna Rabinowitz, Floyd Skloot, and Matthew Zapruder and fiction writers Lewis Buzbee and David Petruzelli, was tarnished late last year by allegations of unfairness stemming from Levine's administration of an open submission period in July 2006 and his subsequent invitation to a number of poets whose work was rejected during that period to submit to the Dorset Prize—where, he said, they would automatically pass through the first round of competition.
The controversy that followed prompted Levine to say, "The world is full of a lot of burning effigies of me at the moment." 
 
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